


Fateful and New

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Series: Breath of the Wild University AU [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meeting, Gen, Mute Link, Nonbinary Sheik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Link, nervous about being able to make friends at university, goes to a social for his subject and meets someone who will end up being a lifelong companion.





	Fateful and New

University, so far, was not going half as badly as Link had feared that it would. Of course, he hadn't met any of the people on his course yet and they could all be terrible, but he was about to find out if that was the case. And he was hopeful for the best. Today was the sociology meetup. He was running out of his allotted money for this week far faster than he had expected to, so he probably wasn't going to be able to have more than a snack and some tap water. At least he'd be more sober than everyone else at the social. The bar it was being held at, the Restless Cricket, was only a ten minute walk away from his accommodation. That likely meant that there would be a thousand drunk students stumbling past his flat every night when term started, but never mind.

He waved to Zelda as he left the flat, and she smiled and waved back. It was strange to think that someone famous like her was living in his flat, but far better was how she knew sign language. It was more than he ever could have hoped for. He took the lift down to the lowest floor, and that was when the nervousness started. Would they hate him? Would no one want to talk to him? People liked being loud and they didn't like having to read to communicate. Link tried to ignore his worries, squashing them down by focusing on finding his way to the bar. It would be a lot easier to just concentrate on directions- and those certainly took up a lot of his brainpower.

There were people everywhere and it was more than a little overwhelming. He was scared. He wasn't used to being around this many people because he just never spent time with people. And now he was alone in the middle of campus with no one to communicate with. If he lost his notepad, he'd be screwed. The solution to that, then, was not to lose his notepad. Taking a deep breath, Link stuck his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around it, then headed off towards the bar with his head held high. Courage. He could do this.

It was well lit inside, probably to keep out everyone who was hung over, but it was getting very loud. There were lots of people inside who weren't just there for the Sociology meetup, so he had to pick his way through the crowd as he attempted to find the tables with the right sign. There were several tables reserved, and at the moment there were just three people sitting there. Link watched for a moment. He didn’t want to go over because being early probably looked strange, but this was his best chance at getting a foothold in at least some conversation before more people appeared and it inevitably became too difficult to talk to them. Not that it wouldn’t already be difficult to talk to them. 

Taking a deep breath for courage, he went and sat down at the table. Two people ignored him, but the person sat next to him flashed him a smile. A rather attractive smile, Link thought privately. He waved and placed his notebook on the table, writing a short introduction for himself.

‘Hi, I’m Link. I can’t speak but I can hear you if you speak. I’m doing Sociology and I’m really interested in activism and inclusion type politics (and fantasy or mythology books).’

The person next to him took the notebook, scanning the words with reddish-brown eyes and then looking back to Link. “Good to meet you. I’m Sheik, I’m studying Sociology and Sheikah History. Combined. Do you have to carry around many of those notebooks?”

‘Just two,’ he wrote. ‘One for taking notes and such and one for talking to people.’ It seemed like a really strange question to ask, but at least it wasn’t intrusive. He hated being asked why he couldn’t speak when he could hear.

“Ah… I had a mental image of you dragging around a bag full of those things.” Sheik chuckled. “Anyway- this is supposed to be a meetup, so I’m going to consider getting to know you better my duty for the evening. Saves me the pain of talking to anyone else as well…”

‘I don’t think the point of a social is to find one person to talk to without talking to anyone else,’ Link wrote, but he smiled at them. He understood the feeling. Talking to several people was really hard and he always worried that they were just going to get bored of him and leave him out.

“If you want to go and talk to other people, I won’t stop you, but I think I found the most interesting person who’s going to show up already.” That comment made Link blush, and he instantly tried to hide it by pretending to fix his hair.

‘You never know,’ he wrote, but he really hoped that maybe Sheik would keep paying attention to him. There was something just...intriguing about them. Link wanted to know more. ‘What do you like doing? I said stuff about me.’

Sheik’s eyes seemed to light up when Link asked that question, and immediately thy sat up a little taller. “I was raised by Hylian foster parents, so I’ve only just recently had any chance to learn about my own culture. That’s what’s been taking up most of my time- it’s fascinating.”

Link knew he’d definitely hit on the right question. Knowing his own passion for how disability intersects with society, he imagined that Sheik would be able to go on about this for hours. ‘Tell me something you like?’ He suggested.

Sheik thought about it, fiddling with the end of their hair as they did so. “Oh, I know. My namesake- another Sheik- he’s the one who founded the Sheikah tribe. The -ah suffix means ‘of’, so the Sheikah are ‘of Sheik’. He’s mostly a figure of myth, but the stories say he was a male Gerudo thrown out of their town who started up a desert tribe of his own.”

‘That’s really interesting,’ Link wrote. It was really hard to make writing sound genuine, but he hoped that he’d managed it. ‘Do you know the Sheikah language, then? Because I never heard about the suffix before.’

“I’m learning. It’s tough, but I’m determined. By the way…do shut me up if I start to talk too much. I’m enthusiastic about this, but I’ve had it made very clear to me that not everyone is quite as interested as I am.” Link shook his head immediately at their words.

‘I grew up in a place where there were basically no Sheikah,’ he wrote. ‘I don’t know a thing about them or their culture except that lots of Hylians are really shit about it even though Sheikah have lived in Hyrule for longer than they have, by some accounts.’ Link knew his mythology, and according to some really old myths, the Sheikah lived on the surface of Hyrule when the Hylians didn’t.

“That’s the rough gist of it,” Sheik said, laughing. “My people moved around a lot, back when they still lived in tribes. And it’s a lot easier to conquer a country when you have a solid city base to do it in. Hylian settlers one, Sheikah tribes zero. That’s just the way history goes…”

Link didn’t fully understand the exact historical event Sheik was talking about, but he imagined it was something that had happened a long time ago. He wondered what Sheik thought of the Civil War that had almost wiped their people out a millenia ago, but for some reason that was still a controversial topic and maybe wasn’t one for their first conversation. ‘Are there many tribes now?’

“No. Most people live in cities. There’s a tribe out in the Gerudo Desert still… Some day I’d like to visit them. I’m rather hoping that my history studies here will give me a chance to do that.” Sheik smiled, leaning forwards. Normally Link didn’t much like other people getting too close, but this was perfectly fine. Other people were arriving now, but Link didn’t care. He’d found a friend already.

‘Is it okay if I ask you to order something for me?’ He asked. ‘It’s an utter pain to order through writing in a bar that’s pretty busy.’ Sheik nodded.

“What do you want?” They asked. “I can reliably inform you that the coffee they serve here is shit but the tea is nice.” It was the third evening of the term and Sheik already knew which drinks were awful.

‘Do you spend a lot of time here then?’ He asked. ‘I’d just like something small, maybe a waffle or something. They’re meant to be nice here, I think.’

“I came here yesterday just to see what it was like. If they served any drinks other than alcohol.” Sheik stood up, glancing around.”I’ll see what I can do about a waffle and some tea… Save my seat, these tables are filling up fast.”

Link nodded, moving his notebook to put it on Sheik’s chair. He waved to a couple of people and listened to their conversations, but none of them made much of an attempt to talk to him. They were content to have their own conversations, which was pretty normal, but it was so nice to just talk freely with Sheik. Perhaps he should offer them his phone number. Texting was the best sort of conversation Link could have, and the easiest. Everyone knew how to text. It was the only way Link felt normal. But asking a cute person for their number was probably like asking them on a date or something. He didn't want Sheik to think that Link was trying to get in their (distractingly tight as they'd walked away) pants or anything, but he did want to be able to talk more.

He watched as Sheik leaned on the bar to order, smiling at the girl behind the counter and then glancing back over at Link and turning that same smile on him. They really were cute… Maybe he should just ask for their number. He didn't want to start having sex straight off the bat or anything, and Sheik didn't seem like that kind of person either. They seemed like a person he could be friends with and then ruin the friendship by having a crush on them.

Distracted by his thoughts, Link barely noticed when Sheik came back and placed a plate down on the table in front of him. Quickly shaking himself back to reality, Link smiled a thank you at Sheik and looked down at the syrup-covered waffle on his plate. It looked pretty good. 'How much do I owe you?' He asked, getting his wallet out of his pocket. He knew it was reasonably priced, but he definitely didn't want Sheik thinking that he was trying to get money off them. 

"Your number?" Sheik suggested with a wide smile. Link nearly stopped breathing. "One fifty is a small price to pay for continued contact with a friend." Link blushed, putting his wallet away and pulling out his phone instead. He found his number and then passed the device over to Sheik so that they could enter it into their phone. That gave him a good twenty seconds to try and calm down. Still not nearly enough.

Sheik wanted to keep being friends. Sheik wanted to talk to him again. They weren't bored of watching him write something down and waiting for a response for far longer than was normal in a conversation. Link felt blessed to be in their presence, honestly, and not just because they were really attractive. Although that did play a large part in it. 

Link waited for Sheik to finish before taking his phone back, noticing that they had added themself as a contact in his phone, too. Perfect. He didn't know what to do now. Maybe he'd send them a text after the social was done, though really there wasn't too much point in staying for a long time if he wasn't going to talk to anyone else. 'Did you want to try to talk to other people?' He asked. 'I know it's a social so maybe you changed your mind.'

"No, I think I'm fine right here." Sheik took a sip of their tea, and Link suddenly remembered that he had a waffle to eat. He should probably get on with that and not waste Sheik's money.

In the end, they talked for hours about everything they could think of. Books, what they did at college, a couple of things about family. Link offered to help Sheik attempt to trace their ancestry using the university databases the next day, and Sheik said they wouldn't mind meeting up with Link whenever to talk. He'd made another friend, an attractive one, and honestly he couldn't have hoped for the night to go any better.


End file.
